Bohdan Chmielnicki Massacres of 1593 to 1657 Brought the Messiah, Or So They Thought

Nadene Goldfoot                                         

Bohdan Khmelnytsky's entry into Kyiv after victory against Polish domination, by Mykola Ivasyuk

There was a Cossack leader, Chmielnicki, Bogdan, who headed the rising of the Cossacks and Ukrainian masses from 1593 to 1657  against Polish landowners, the Catholic clergy and the Jews.  This rebellion made headway at first and resulted in the annihilation of hundreds of Jewish communities and brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, maybe as many as 400,000.  The only Jews spared were those who accepted baptism.  One source said that 744 communities were wiped out in this rebellion.  The areas affected were in Eastern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which is the present day Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Moldova.  

                                                                         

This event was so horrible that it sent a shockwave throughout Jewry and  and caused those who lived through it or heard about it to feel a messianic impulse which gave support for Shabbetai Tzevi(1626-1676) to be looked upon as the Messiah.

                                              

Shabbetai Tzevi 

He turned out to be one of those pseudo-messiahs who was born in Smyrna, Turkey and was attracted to the Kabbalah when young when he was showing manic-depressive tendencies which were growing more pronounced all his life.  After these horrors of the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-1649, he was moved by this messianic spirit by hearing a heavenly voice, saying that he would redeem Israel.  

His listeners of Jews were won over by his emotional sermons and fresh doctrines.  In 1662 he traveled to Rhodes, Tripoli and Egypt where he married Sarah, a survivor of the Polish massacres, who wanted to marry the Messiah.  He returned to Palestine that same year and by 1665, Nathan of Gaza pronounced him the king-Messiah, so he must have held it together and had not acted too out of sorts.  However, the rabbis of Jerusalem didn't take him to be the Messiah at all, and excommunicated him, so he was forced to return to Turkey.  

                                                

Unfortunately, the Ukrainians regarded Chmielnicki as a national hero.  

A community was formed there toward the end of the 16th century; 100 houses in Jewish ownership out of a total of 800 are recorded in 1646. The community was destroyed during the Chmielnicki rising in 1648, and again suffered at the beginning of the Haidamack rising in 1703. Subsequently, Jews again began to settle there, in 1765 numbering 1,876 poll-tax-payers in the town and its vicinity.       

In Jewish history, the Uprising is known for the concomitant outrages against the Jews who, in their capacity as leaseholders (arendators), were seen by the peasants as their immediate oppressors.  However, Shmuel Ettinger argues that both Ukrainian and Polish accounts of the massacres overemphasize the importance of the Jewish role as landlords, while downplaying the religious motivation for Cossack violence.

The fact remains that Jews were not allowed to own land in these places, so 

 were more likely hired by the nobles who did own the land to collect the 

rent for them, something other places have done.
                                             

        

 A city in the Ukraine most likely affected by the massacres was  Belaya Tserkov.

"Belaya Tserkov is a historic city located in Kiev region of Central Ukraine, center of Belaya Tserkov district. Belaya Tserkov is located on the Ros’ River, a tributary of the Dnieper. The city’s estimated population is 212,090 (as of 2016).  

Belaya Tserkov became a part of Russia Empire in 1793, in 1919– beginning of 20th century it was a shtetl of Vasylkov Yezd of Kiev Gubernia." 
Jews are first mentioned as living in Belaya Tserkov in 1589. The locality was known in Hebrew as Sdeh Lavan (White Field) and in Yiddish as Shvartse Tume (Black Church). The Jewish community of Belaya Tserkov was almost completely destroyed in 1648 during the uprising of Bogdan Chmielnitsky.
   Researchers of genealogy have found that a Hochfeld family came from this town.  

Resource:

Belaya Tserkovorg/belaya_tserkov

/http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/05/ukraines-massacre-of-jews-worse-than.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprisinghttp://jewua.org/belaya_tserkov/The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising
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